- Welcome back to Behind
the Scenes of "The Waltons." If you're enjoying these videos, please do subscribe and hit the like button and
turn on the notifications so you'll know when I post a new one. Today, I'm going to be talking
about my youngest sister, Elizabeth, played by the
adorable Kami Cotler. When we first met Kami, when
we were doing "The Homecoming," she was this just adorable
little five-year-old with this head of amazing red hair, and this smile and brightness. She was just so much fun. She was like everybody's little sister that we all wanted to
pick up and carry around. We all had such fun working with her. And, of course, she had, I think, one of the most iconic
lines from "The Homecoming," when she looked so innocent
to our mother and said: - I don't feel like a pissant. - I think that is a line
I get quoted back to me as much as "Good night, Mary Ellen," or "Good night, John Boy." So that was the beginning
of a lifelong friendship and love with Kami. It's often said in Hollywood, "Don't work with kids or animals." And I understand why that is because they're such scene stealers and Kami was such a scene stealer without even trying. And she was pretty precocious. I think she clued into
some of that after a bit that how she could get extra
attention from cast and crew and everybody by being as cute as she was. And she was very intelligent. She had no trouble knowing
her lines, learning them, remembering them, saying them on cue. And that was like right from the beginning as a five-year-old. So she was perfectly cast as Elizabeth. Kami had quite a few
allergies when she was young. And I'm sure being on the back lot with a lot of the smells and the dust, and on the soundstage, you know, the dust and whatnot,
really aggravated it. So she was on antihistamines
a lot of the time. And so sometimes if you listen, she sounds a little plugged up because that was just allergies. And she would sometimes
very much sound like she had a cold or something. The other thing that I noticed a lot when she was young was that she couldn't get a big enough breath to say a whole line. So she would start a line and part way through the line, she would just have to
stop (breathes deeply) and take another breath
to continue the line. And it was the sweetest little thing. I just, I thought it was so
adorable whenever I saw that. And when I happen to see an
episode where she does that, it just always brings a smile to my face. I was already 14, so I didn't spend as much time just hanging around with Kami
because I just didn't have as much in common with her. Of course we were in the
school room together, but in the school room,
the three older children, which was me and Eric, who played Ben, and Jon, who played Jason, the three of us had a teacher who, you know, taught
the high school level. And then there was another teacher who taught Mary and David and
Kami in the younger grades. At that point in time, even in school, we weren't doing the same subjects or necessarily dealing
with the same teacher although we shared a schoolroom
together, all six of us. As we got older, Kami, of course, once
she was into her teens, there didn't seem to be
as much age difference. And so often all of the girls, me and Mary and Leslie Winston
who played Cindy, Ben's wife, we would hang out together, you know, in one of our dressing rooms and share stories and, you know, and tell a little secrets to each other. And particularly when
we were on the back lot, for sound purposes, we were often wearing body mics. And so we'd often forget we had them on and we didn't necessarily have, although there was a switch,
it was like in your back and so you couldn't really reach it, and it wasn't good to
turn them on and off. But the sound person would turn them, turn the volume off on it and stuff. But sometimes when we were in the trailer we were sharing what we
thought were like real secrets and probably weren't anything, suddenly we'd go, "Are
you wearing a mic?" It's like, oh my goodness, we
didn't want people overhearing our little secrets. And I swear, you know, sound people people must
hear all kinds of things when people are wearing body mics. And they have to be very trustworthy too and loyal to, you know, to their job, to not be sharing some of the things that they probably hear actors reveal when they're wearing body mics. But we had a wonderful sound man. And I think he was entirely trustworthy, so we appreciated that (laughs). Kami has a younger brother, Jeffrey. And Jeffrey did a couple of
episodes of "The Waltons," including the episode where the two English children
come to Walton's Mountain. And like Kami, he's just cute as a button. So we enjoyed having Jeffrey on the set. And sometimes our siblings would be on set and would do background work in scenes, so I think most of us at some point had our siblings on set
to be in the background of scenes that we were doing. So that was always fun. After "The Waltons," Kami was
very interested in education and she spent quite a few years in school and studying abroad, and on the East Coast, and up in the Bay area of California. And ultimately, decided
she wanted to be a teacher. And when she first started teaching, she actually taught in Virginia right near the home of Earl Hamner, who created "The Waltons." So I think that must've been
quite a kick for her students to come into a classroom and be taught by Elizabeth Walton. I think after a bit, the
parents and the families got very used to Kami's presence there, and I'm sure that it got to
be just routine for them. But what a kick for those families. Kami has continued in the education field and now works with an
environmental charter school. And we're very proud of
everything that she is doing to help educate our next generation. So those are a few behind the scenes pieces of information about Kami Cotler, who played Elizabeth. And she's very active on social media, so you can interact with
her on her Facebook page. And she quite often shares information about her recollections
of our time together on "The Waltons." So I'll see you next time on more Behind the Scenes of "The Waltons."
